Empirical Geographic Modeling of Switchgrass Yields in the United States

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a perennial grass native to the United States that has been studied as a sustainable source of biomass fuel. Although many field‐scale studies have examined the potential of this grass as a bioenergy crop, these studies have not been integrated. In this study, we present an empirical model for switchgrass yield and use this model to predict yield for the conterminous United States. We added environmental covariates to assembled yield data from field trials based on geographic location. We developed empirical models based on these data. The resulting empirical models, which account for spatial autocorrelation in the field data, provide the ability to estimate yield from factors associated with climate, soils, and management for both lowland and upland varieties of switchgrass. Yields of both ecotypes showed quadratic responses to temperature, increased with precipitation and minimum winter temperature, and decreased with stand age. Only the upland ecotype showed a positive response to our index of soil wetness and only the lowland ecotype showed a positive response to fertilizer. We view this empirical modeling effort, not as an alternative to mechanistic plant‐growth modeling, but rather as a first step in the process of functional validation that will compare patterns produced by the models with those found in data. For the upland variety, the correlation between measured yields and yields predicted by empirical models was 0.62 for the training subset and 0.58 for the test subset. For the lowland variety, the correlation was 0.46 for the training subset and 0.19 for the test subset. Because considerable variation in yield remains unexplained, it will be important in the future to characterize spatial and local sources of uncertainty associated with empirical yield estimates

Who Participates in an Internet-Based Research Program for Mothers of Infants? A Secondary Prevention Research Study Among Low-Income Families

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the participation rates and factors associated with nonparticipation among mothers living in low-income households who were invited to join a parent-education and -support research program delivered via the Internet with professional support. Methods: Four hundred and seventy-seven mothers of infants were contacted via a variety of recruitment methods, including presentations at clinics/classes, direct mailings, print advertisement, and Internet posts. Research staff attempted to contact these mothers by phone, to assess their eligibility, and interest in participation. For those who were eligible but declined participation, we assessed reasons for declining and collected demographic information. Results: Seventy-four percent of those eligible agreed to participate in the program. Statistical tests comparing participants and decliners on demographic variables found no significant differences on mother’s age and marital status. There was a significant difference on baby’s age due to many decliners in the prenatal period. Mothers were an average age of 28 years and most were married (65.6%). Our sample of low-income participants was diverse with a large number of Latina mothers. Approximately half had a high-school diploma or less but 84% reported being moderately or very comfortable using a computer and half had a computer at home

Gravitational Waves from Light Cosmic Strings: Backgrounds and Bursts with Large Loops

The mean spectrum and burst statistics of gravitational waves produced by a cosmological population of cosmic string loops are estimated using analytic approximations, calibrated with earlier simulations. Formulas are derived showing the dependence of observables on the string tension, in the regime where newly-formed loops are relatively large, not very much smaller than the horizon. Large loops form earlier, are more abundant, and generate a more intense stochastic background and more frequent bursts than assumed in earlier background estimates, enabling experiments to probe lighter cosmic strings of interest to string theory. Predictions are compared with instrument noise from current and future experiments, and with confusion noise from known astrophysical gravitational wave sources such as stellar and massive black hole binaries. In these large-loop models, current data from millisecond pulsar timing already suggests that the tension is less than about $10^{-10}$, a typical value expected in strings from brane inflation. LISA will be sensitive to stochastic backgrounds created by strings as light as $G\mu\approx 10^{-15}$, at frequencies where it is limited by confusion noise of Galactic stellar populations; however, for those lightest detectable strings, bursts are rarely detectable.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 1 figure, submitted to Phys Rev D; minor corrections and clarifications adde

Generating Non-Linear Interpolants by Semidefinite Programming

Interpolation-based techniques have been widely and successfully applied in the verification of hardware and software, e.g., in bounded-model check- ing, CEGAR, SMT, etc., whose hardest part is how to synthesize interpolants. Various work for discovering interpolants for propositional logic, quantifier-free fragments of first-order theories and their combinations have been proposed. However, little work focuses on discovering polynomial interpolants in the literature. In this paper, we provide an approach for constructing non-linear interpolants based on semidefinite programming, and show how to apply such results to the verification of programs by examples.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure

Ares I-X Range Safety Simulation Verification and Analysis Independent Validation and Verification

NASA s Ares I-X vehicle launched on a suborbital test flight from the Eastern Range in Florida on October 28, 2009. To obtain approval for launch, a range safety final flight data package was generated to meet the data requirements defined in the Air Force Space Command Manual 91-710 Volume 2. The delivery included products such as a nominal trajectory, trajectory envelopes, stage disposal data and footprints, and a malfunction turn analysis. The Air Force s 45th Space Wing uses these products to ensure public and launch area safety. Due to the criticality of these data, an independent validation and verification effort was undertaken to ensure data quality and adherence to requirements. As a result, the product package was delivered with the confidence that independent organizations using separate simulation software generated data to meet the range requirements and yielded consistent results. This document captures Ares I-X final flight data package verification and validation analysis, including the methodology used to validate and verify simulation inputs, execution, and results and presents lessons learned during the proces

Human Grasp Assist Device Soft Goods

A grasp assist system includes a glove and a flexible sleeve. The glove includes a digit such as a finger or thumb, a force sensor configured to measure a grasping force applied to an object by an operator wearing the glove, and adjustable phalange rings positioned with respect to the digit. A saddle is positioned with respect to the finger. A flexible tendon is looped at one end around the saddle. A conduit contains the tendon. A conduit anchor secured within a palm of the glove receives the conduit. The sleeve has pockets containing an actuator assembly connected to another end of the tendon and a controller. The controller is in communication with the force sensor, and calculates a tensile force in response to the measured grasping force. The controller commands the tensile force from the actuator assembly to tension the tendon and thereby move the finger

Self-Binding Transition in Bose Condensates with Laser-Induced ``Gravitation''

In our recent publication (D. O'Dell, et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5687 (2000)) we proposed a scheme for electromagnetically generating a self-bound Bose-Einstein condensate with 1/r attractive interactions: the analog of a Bose star. Here we focus upon the conditions neccessary to observe the transition from external trapping to self-binding. This transition becomes manifest in a sharp reduction of the condensate radius and its dependence on the laser intensity rather that the trap potential.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures: slightly enhanced text: more explanatio